Paper PCs design rolled out
A materials manufacturer has produced a paper-based compound which may soon find its way onto hardware factory lines, with recyclable PCs mooted as one possible target. Paper PP Alloy promises to cause a revolution in the world of laptop production, with its inexpensive production, super strength and environmentally friendly …
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environmentally friendly?
to make it, you need to cut down more trees, and it's going to be difficult to get the paper back out to recycle?
doesn't sound _that_ environmentally friendly to me
Re: environmentally friendly?
Agree on the recycling point but the "cut down more trees" argument is bogus. They do replant commercial forests aferwards.
Re: environmentally friendly?
Recycling paper is a bit of a con really, the trees that paper is made out of are specifically grown to make paper. If they weren't being made into paper they wouldn't be grown at all, so recycling paper ultimately means fewer trees when compared to wasting it.
It's also a pretty good CO2 sink.
Anon - as I'm scared of hippies
"Recycling paper is a bit of a con"
Recycled paper stock is good for newsprint and loo paper, but not so great for nice, high quality stuff. Recycling paper is of fairly minimal environmental or economical benefit.
And if the trees weren't being grown for paper, what do you think would happen to the land? Left as an empty howling desert? No, it would most likely be used for timber.
Re: "Recycling paper is a bit of a con"
Actually, since it's technically farm land, it'd just be used to grow what ever else was commercially viable, or used to build on.
Nobody's just going to let it sit there unused when they could be making money with it.
Printed circuit boards used to be made out of SRBP
Synthetic Resin Bonded Paper.
There's still a DIY meme of printing out paper circuit layouts and soldering on the components. Also, there are paper capacitors.
Given all of this, we may not be far from being able to make an eBook reader out of an actual book. The book itself could have been made from recycled eBook readers.
Recursion alert!
Re: Printed circuit boards used to be made out of SRBP
Huh. Then get a some quantum physics in there, and you aaaaaalmost have what may be the prototype for a Myst book.
Enhancement
"If all goes according to plan, then the cardboard box and plastic protection your PC arrives in today, could well be forming the enclosure of your PC tomorrow."
Better still, with a bit of thought, they could make the box fold and twist, transformer-like, to form the PC case.
Re: Enhancement
Years ago I built a UK101 6502-based single board computer. Times was hard and it spent most of its life with the cardboard box it came in as its 'case'
Would also be interesting to know the ratio of paper to polyprop being used.
You lucky lucky bastard
My UK101 (well, the one I borrowed) just sat, open to the elements, on a single sheet of cardboard 'cos we couldn't afford boxes when I was a lad.
Re: You lucky lucky bastard
You wouldn't think I was lucky if you'd heard me after I soldered it all together and it didn't work !
Not an easy thing to debug. I eventually used a crystal earpiece to go round the board and eventually found a duff 7400 - quick replace - it was all socketed - and away it went. Bloody MS BASIC had a bug in its garbage collector but that''s another story.
I'm melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world...
Might make accidental Coffee spillage more interesting!
Re: Let's call it...
Sorry, Microsoft trademarked that already, I think...
I suppose if the paper comes from recycled stock and it reduces the amount of plastic needed, then that's probably a good thing, even if it can't itself be recycled at the end of it?
Not really
many plastics can be recycled, so actually making one from plastic may be MORE friendly.
Re: Not really
I doubt that. You could burn this stuff on your wood-burner and it'd be carbon neutral and likely less rich in all those really nasty organic mixups you so often get from burning plastics.
Re: Re: Not really
Are you seriously suggesting burning a mixture of PP plastic and wood in a wood burner? I pity your neighbours who have to breath in your toxic smoke - not to mention whoever has the job of cleaning your wood burner.
Re: Re: Not really
IANAS*, but this IS (mostly) plastic - they're combining plastic and paper to get the strength from fibres while reducing the more expensive plastic; but it's still got plenty of icky things in it that you wouldn't want to burn.
(* I Am Not A Scientist....)
Re: Re: Re: Not really
Polypropylene burns fairly cleanly, as chemically it contains only carbon and hydrogen, although you'd probably need a modified burner in some way to deal with the fact it would melt. Plastics that give off toxic gases tend to be things like PVC and polystyrene, giving you a wonderful mix of chlorides and styrenes/benzenes!
Paper PCs - What next?
What next, paper cars? Trabant rides again!
Should prove fun...
...when the laptop battery catches fire.
Hope they don't use wood from Apple tree's....
That process has been patented....still at least it won't have rounded corners, just folds.
"Grow more pot!" - Jello Biafra
four times more paper from an acre of marijuana than from an acre of trees and who would not like a poofage covered PC?
Re: "Grow more pot!" - Jello Biafra
Hmmm. Why NOT use hemp instead of paper? Interesting...
At last! HP have something they can use their excess packaging for rather than inflicting it on their hapless customers.
(A pointer, in case you have no idea what I am talking about :
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/18/hp_packaging/
)
Pipe Reams
As ever, conflicting standards are alive, well, and ancient. Are we talking about the printer's ream, or the stationer's ream? There's a full twenty sheets in it.
Is it time for the ream to be redefined as a digital ream of 512 sheets?
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